Hole Ova Da Pole?

Could someone explain what's happening when I am able to work better directly over the pole than direct shortpath bearing?

Another instance, today when I had my moxon turned just off of 0 degrees (actually, I was about 350 degrees), and was able to work a station in Minnesota, and another in Illinois, on 20m. My correct path to this area should be 25 degrees. The moxon throws a pretty wide path, but am thinking my signal may have been bent somewhat over the pole, because even with a 110 degree path with the moxon, I was flirting with the far reaches of the moxon.

Is there a polar condition which causes this?

Thanks,
HL1ZIX/ KE0EYJ

Attached Files:

Nah ... this is normal for most any amateur HF directional antenna. None I'm familiar with have such a narrow beam width that you'd notice. Even my 3EL Steppir has something like 40-45 degrees beam width for the 3db points. With those same band conditions, you could probably point at 45 and still work Minnesota.

Nah ... this is normal for most any amateur HF directional antenna. None I'm familiar with have such a narrow beam width that you'd notice. Even my 3EL Steppir has something like 40-45 degrees beam width for the 3db points. With those same band conditions, you could probably point at 45 and still work Minnesota.

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For most unidirectional antennas with modest gain, it ain't that critical. The higher the gain, the more critical the aiming. I once worked with μWave (f ≥ 2 GHz) TELCO gear that used 30 dB gain dishes. In that case, aiming mattered.